


Burning Hearts

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: Blood and Burning [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angsting over unrequited love, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 08:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5914594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren mistakes practicality for kindness, contact for consideration and both for love.</p><p>Things spiral from there.</p><p>A semi-sequel to <i><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5883097">Bloody Bedmates</a></i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TobermorianSass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass/gifts), [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/gifts).



> Gifted to my dear friends - as listed above - for their patience in listening to me whine about writing this, for not completely tearing out their hair at me for the excerpts I showed them (Jojo), and for picking on me for making an understatement (Niamh). 
> 
> This is written as a semi-sequel to _[Bloody Bedmates](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5883097)_ , hence why it's marked as a sequel in a series of it. If you're reading this I'd... half advise reading it? It helps explain the path this takes somewhat, but it is by no means necessary. There is a playlist for this, which you can listen to [Here](http://8tracks.com/ereshkigal/blood-burning), tracklist [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/138915401730/blood-burning-a-semi-unrequited-kylux-playlist).
> 
> Also a warning: you may hate me by the end of this. I can only apologise.

**Burning Hearts**

**i.**  
Hux doesn’t mean for it to happen. The sex is _cathartic_ , it allows them to work out their hate, bloody and bleeding and biting, to hurt each other and let go all at once.

He doesn’t quite understand why Kylo likes it so, when he’s evidently more used to letting out his emotions in tantrums and destruction, but he doesn’t mind it. He knows it’s good for him, to let out all his frustration at the other man’s childishness and snideness, sarcasm and incompetence, knows that Kylo responds with biting and clawing and force-chokes that he’s gradually learning the subtlety of, that he evidently _enjoys_ their scattered moments of release.

He did not expect Kylo Ren’s groaned out whimper of “ _love you_.”

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
Kylo doesn’t know when it started. When the hatred that bubbled up so easily around Hux became… whatever it now was. Some days he thinks it is hate still – it is certainly strong enough, violent enough – but it is not hatred, it doesn’t pull to the Dark the same way their hate-fuelled coupling does. He tries examining his feelings in meditation, picking apart the threads of hatred which remain, the odd gratitude for how what he and Hux do keep him anchored firmly to the Dark Side, the appreciation for Hux’s hidden ways out of rooms to hide their secret from all else.

He still doesn’t understand it, and he’s not sure what it is, not Light or Dark but a confusing in-between thing that could be either. He supposes he is grateful it is not Light alone, but its intermediary form makes things uncertain, makes _him_ uncertain, makes the hate pour out more readily into the biting, teeth-clacking kisses he shares with Hux.

He tries to pick apart where it came from. Maybe, he thinks, it is that from Hux he can get the connection to the Dark he so desperately craves, and cannot gain on his own, leading hatesex to true desire to this new thing. Maybe it is from the odd things Hux would do, reminding him to use bacta salves to seal up obvious cuts, heal painful bruises, pointing him down one secret way out of whatever room they had used so no one would see them. It’s almost kindness of a sort, but it’s also practicality. Given that it’s Hux it’s almost certainly practicality and nothing more, but Kylo has been so long without kindness or contact that both seemingly from one source is too much for him for him to easily parse.

He did not mean to say the two words he did.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
They are not naked – they almost never are when things happen between them, hatred and passion and power deciding to circumvent the usual necessity of nudity – and Hux is grateful. It means he can stand back and look at the mess of a human being that is Kylo Ren from the other side of the room without being frozen cold or feeling overly exposed.

Kylo’s eyes go from wide open to tight shut as though he’s just realised what he’s said. Youthful face, eyes clenched shut like a child’s and Hux wonders, not for the first time, how old Kylo Ren actually _is_ , with his face and his behaviour. And even with that, he considers, what might training and conditioning have made of him, might Snoke have made of him, to help him better serve the Order?

He sighs, straightens his uniform, smoothes out the wrinkles, presses strands of his hair back into place.

“You know the secret door,” he says, and leaves.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
_Mistake_ , Kylo thinks. And _regret failure loss sorrow_ and last, last of all, a whimpered _**no.**_ Hatesex, that was what it was called, called that for a reason, not for love, not for affection, for _hatred_ to work it out to let it all go and get something from it for once, and that was all.

Not for love. Never for love.

When he gets back to his rooms he spends several hours meditating, contemplating the helmet of his grandfather.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
Hux keeps a distance, after that. The hatesex was cathartic, certainly, but not necessary, and he refuses to let Kylo Ren think there might be more than what there simply is. Hatred. Possibly a touch of pity now, but there isn’t really space for such an emotion in the First Order. A few times he considers going to check on him, when he hasn’t been seen for a few days, but eventually decides to send Phasma.

No sense letting Ren get more attached.

Phasma returns only to say that Ren is meditating, and Hux decides to be glad that he’s not destroying control panels again.

 

* * *

 

 **vi.  
** A few days later Kylo Ren _does_ destroy a control panel and Hux supposes he really ought to have seen it coming.

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
There is chaos of a kind, whirling swirling, the Light kind of love, desperate and pleading and wanting but never taking, and the Dark mirror to it, touched by the hate and the want and possessive edge that Kylo no longer cares for. He can’t have Hux. He knows he can’t, knows Snoke would never permit it in the manner he seeks, knows that Hux does not want that of him – wants nothing of him now – and knows that, in this, this love is turning Light, is adding to what love he still feels for his parents and for Chewie, the Light that binds him back and back and back to home and far away from the twisting truths of the First Order.

He wonders why, why this is, why, when love was what drove Darth Vader to the Dark Side, it would tug him, Vader’s grandson, to the Light instead. He doesn’t want this, doesn’t want this at all, but he can feel it, burning brighter and brighter, and feels Snoke almost flinch away when his Master next reaches out his mind to prove his power.

Blinding Light. Burning Light. Light that the Dark cannot touch.

Snoke tells him to kill his father.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.  
** His father pleads with him, pleads with him to leave, to drop his helmet, leave the Dark, leave the base and Kylo can see the Light, the Light shining out, as bright as the far away glow he knows comes from his mother. It is love and forgiveness and hope and so much more and Kylo feels the Light he has been trying to hide burn outwards, burn through the cloaking Dark, burn through the aching pain of knowing that some of the love he feels will never be returned and it is so _easy_ to leave his lightsabre on his belt, to take his father’s hand and leave.

 _Hux is down there somewhere_ , he thinks as the _Millennium Falcon_ takes off. He thinks of Hux, neatly uniformed, not a hair out of place, pale eyes and pale skin against the pale, pale snow. He thinks of the shields lowered, the oscillator destroyed, of the planet burning up from the inside, and tries not to think of the near-certainty that is Hux’s possible death.

He leans back, tilts his head so he is resting against the wall he always used to stick pictures to when he was a child, stretches out his awareness and the Force, tries to find Hux through all the chaos far below. He doesn’t know if it will work. He is working with the shining Light now, that bright-burning thing, and not the Dark he has become so accustomed to. He does not know if this Force will be able to find Hux as instinctively as the other could, after only mere moments.

 _There_.

He can feel him, anger and worry and _damnit **damnit** **DAMNIT**_ circling through his mind as he strides through the base. There is awareness there, of orders, of where the ships are, of what is going to happen to the planet. There is no self-concern, no particular fear in all Hux’s regimented mind, and Ben Organa-Solo breathes out all his stress and sleeps.

 

* * *

 

 **ix.  
** When they touch down FN-2187 – _Finn_ he corrects himself – is already running to the door, down the ramp and out. He can just about feel the shining joy of the man’s mind as he watches the X-wings come in to land. The Force girl, Rey, is watching him warily and he can feel the waves of _distrust_ circling out from her.

“You don’t have to like me,” he says. He has been trying to relearn compassion – easier with the Force than without he thinks – but he doesn’t know if there is anything quite enough to apologise for ripping into someone’s mind.

Rey’s jaw sets and she stalks off the _Falcon_ , tossing the lightsabre in her hand in some kind of irritation.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
Leia sees her son and feels nothing but _glad._ He looks so uncertain, and so pale in the dark robes. His hair has grown long, and he really _hasn’t_ grown into his features terribly well and it’s not made any better by his uncertainty, but he is her _son_ , and it is nothing to embrace him as though he had never joined the enemy.

She can see Han stepping off the _Falcon_ , see Chewie behind him, bowcaster still in his great paws as though he does not trust Ben, but Leia knows her son, knows what the Force is telling her even if she was never trained to use it.

Her son has come _home_.

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
Ben can feel it, feel his mother’s gladness. He’s taller than she is now – not that that was ever particularly unlikely to be the case – but he still feels like a child when she embraces him. He can sense Han behind them, stepping off the _Falcon_ , and behind him Chewie, wary and watching, the weight of the bowcaster in his paws.

He isn’t going to do anything. He doesn’t think he can, feeling the lives snuffed out on Starkiller base as it went up waking him screaming from sleep.

The First Order would have killed many more had that not happened.

He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this tired, though, and when he’s shown to a room it is easy to throw his lightsabre to one side, and sink into the lumpy bed.

He has dreams and nightmares both that night, and all involving General Hux.

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
Han is going to take Rey to the location hidden on the final map piece, and he offers Ben a place on the _Falcon_ too. Chewie doesn’t like it – warns against it in fact – and some part of Ben’s heart aches with the knowledge that Chewie, big Uncle Chewie, doesn’t trust him.

He knows he can’t blame him though, and goes to talk to his mother before agreeing.

He doesn’t want to see Luke again, not after what he did, but his whole self is singing around the Light again and he knows he must apologise as best he can, knows he owes his uncle at least that much.

He spends most of the trip in meditation, barring eating and sleeping, and avoids Chewie and Rey and FN- – _Finn_ – when the ex-trooper comes through. He thinks on his uncle, on how to apologise, picking apart all of his feelings towards him, good and bad until he thinks he understands himself well enough to express himself without falling into a Kylo Ren habit.

They’re still a half-day out, so he spends the rest of the time meditating on his dreams about Hux.

The dreams are persistent and he doesn’t know why.

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
Ben lingers behind Rey when they arrive at the First Temple. She is the one to pass Luke the lightsabre, she the one to greet him, to explain things. Ben stays back, hovering and uncertain; loathe to disturb whatever conversation they share.

Eventually Luke asks how they got here and Rey is smiling as she tells him that Han brought them.

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
It’s Luke who insists they all return and, after gathering what little he possesses, they do so. The planet is vast and blue beneath them as they take off, and Ben curls into a corner, watching the world fall away. He can sense Chewie’s mind, glad, Rey’s mind, sleeping and Finn’s mind – also sleeping – curled around her. His father’s mind is bright as it always is piloting, and Luke’s…

Ben tries to avoid his Uncle’s mind.

 

* * *

 

 **xv.**  
They are almost back to D’Qar when Luke sits beside him. He doesn’t say anything – there is too much between them to easily say – but he sits and he waits. Ben can sense no loathing from him, no hatred, but those are Dark, strongly so, and so he tests for distaste and discomfort and distrust and finds none.

“Han’s told me you returned freely.”

Ben shrugs. “He asked. I couldn’t stop the Light trying to pull me back so I went with him. I didn’t want to be torn apart and I didn’t want to kill him.”

Luke is silent and Ben gets the faintest whiff of disbelief from his mind.

“I never wanted to kill dad,” Ben says. “Piss him off, sure. I never wanted to kill him. Snoke ordered me to. I couldn’t. I went with him.”

“If it was that simple,” Luke says, “I imagine you wouldn’t have so much trouble telling me.”

Ben looks at his Uncle. He’s aged and tired, lines spiderwebbing out even more than they had when he’d left and infinitely more grey hairs. His eyes are patient though, politely watchful, and Ben has to blink away.

“I’d rather not,” he says.

For a while there is quiet and the hum of the _Falcon_ ’s engines. Outside the world is a medley of the light and dark and colour hyperspace can be and the minds around them are non-intrusive and non-harmful.

“I never told you,” Luke says quietly, “How I beat Vader.”

Ben blinks back up at his uncle.

“You know about the fight,” he says, “and you know why he turned in the first place.”

“Padmé Amidala,” Ben says. “Grandmother.”

Luke inclines his head. “He received visions of a future that could happen, one in which she died and, in his desperation to stop it happening, he caused it to happen. But I never told you how it all ended.”

Ben uncurls, sits cross-legged as he had when he was a child and Uncle Luke was telling a story to him and the other padawans. Attentive, alert. He sees the ghost of a smile on Luke’s face as his uncle continues.

“I didn’t expect to survive that final battle,” he says. “I knew, then, that Vader was mine and Leia’s father. I knew that this mattered to him on some level, though I didn’t know all of why until many years later. Emperor Palpatine was aware of this – or at least some of this.

“There’s a technique,” Luke says, and his tone has changed to something almost conversational. “It’s called Force lightning. It’s terribly difficult, even Master Yoda could only redirect it, take its energy in and channel it back out without changing its nature. I don’t know if it’s a Dark Side technique, but I’ve not heard of any Jedi using it. Palpatine was incredibly skilled with it.” He pauses a moment, his eyes far away. “He was going to kill me, because I refused to fight. He wanted me to kill Vader, or attack him, something that would risk sending me to the Dark Side.”

Luke shakes his head. “Palpatine was a master of warping good people to the Dark Side.” His eyes meet Ben’s. “I refused. He was going to kill me. So,” Luke shrugs. “I begged Vader to intervene. I was his son, someone he’d cared enough for to chase across the galaxy. I begged him to intervene and at the last moment, when I was sure to die, he did.”

There is a certainty in his eyes. “Love is a powerful thing. It let Vader be entrapped by the Dark Side, affected his motivation on the Dark Side, but ultimately it pulled him free of it. Love, like hate, are the most dangerous emotions to any Jedi. Feel them too keenly, refuse to let them go, and they will linger and fester and make us incapable of what we need to be to be true Jedi. They will make us incapable of upholding the Code. But balanced, considered, felt not for ourselves, not out of selfishness alone, they can lift us free of it, make us more compassionate, more certain, more powerful in the Force than anyone else.

“Love and hate can be Dark, but they don’t have to be. That’s what the old Order forgot.”

 

* * *

 

 **xvi.**  
Rey is good with the lightsabre she’s given – Kenobi’s, apparently, somehow recovered – and Luke trains them with his own. He offers Ben his lightsabre, for training, but it doesn’t feel right to take his uncle’s weapon.

“I’ll use my own,” he says. “Though a new crystal would be good.”

Luke smiles. “As soon as we’re able, then.”

 

* * *

 

 **xvii.**  
Training on D’Qar is interesting. In some ways it’s very easy, falling back into the patterns of long ago, and all the layered peace that came with it. This time, though, there are no whispered thoughts, no dreams sent by Snoke to try to tug him to the Dark Side and it is that much more pleasant for it. There’s no need for resentment, no single thing to cause it without Snoke’s interference. Rey trains hard, has a subtlety with the Force that Ben has never had, and they’re on a level surprisingly rapidly.

Once, with Snoke in his head, Ben might have minded that, resented it even, but now it’s easier to be appreciative of how quickly Rey seems to take to everything.

Sometimes, when Finn isn’t helping on the base, or spending time with one of the X-wing pilots – _Poe Dameron_ he reminds himself – he’s with them instead, watching Rey. He’d had no practice with a lightsabre when he’d first attempted to use one, and he’s not particularly Force-sensitive, but Luke is surprisingly willing to let him try again.

Some days, instead of training them, Luke will tell them stories, or ask them to share something they already know. Rey teaches them to scavenge, how to find the best items from a wreck or ruin, things that can be repaired to work again and how to do so. Ben shows them how to hold plasma blasts still and how to redirect them.

Luke looks at him worriedly on some mornings, and Ben knows why. He doesn’t sleep well, forcing himself to wake after every particular dream he has. He doesn’t want to think of Hux, doesn’t want to care about Hux, and that’s easier to do when he’s training and has something else to focus on, but sleeping lets it all come creeping out and no matter how hard he trains in the mind tricks of the Force he cannot seem to stop them.

 

* * *

 

 **xviii.**  
The dreams don’t stop. Sometimes he half-fears they’re Force Visions, showing him what is happening, what will happen, but other times they’re so bizarre they have to be dreams. Sometimes they’re reminders of what had happened and he wakes aching and has to stumble through the dark of his room into a freezing shower.

Ben doesn’t know what causes them. He tries to meditate, to clear away all faint ideas he might have, to tuck Hux away into corners of his mind where his dreams don’t go searching.

It doesn’t work, but the dreams change. They become less bizarre, more certain, mixtures of memories and fears and vague ideas, and Ben wakes screaming from a nightmare where he sees Hux order the _Finalizer_ to open fire on what looks like the _Falcon_.

 

* * *

 

 **xix.**  
Ben feels when his father is killed and knows his mother does as well. Chewie is on base with them, helping some of the X-Wing pilots fix up their ships, Rey and Luke are helping Maz, and Han… Han was doing a run, one he said would be brief and that he’d be back right away.

Ben feels his life snuffed out, even so far away. He sees Leia fold, sit on the nearest chair looking as though she has been punched in the chest.

His father is dead.

 

* * *

 

 **xx.**  
A few days later there is a report, picked up by an informant in the First Order. It’s leaked on purpose, they think, it’s the only way they could be certain and here it is, from the _Finalizer_ itself. A report, a list of ships they’d shot down leaving the very planet Han had been headed for.

_Corellian YT-1300 light freighter – Shot down, no survivors_

Ben has never wished to destroy something more than he did when he saw that report.

 

* * *

 

 **xxi.**  
There is no funeral. How can there be, with Han’s body gone? Chewie is almost inconsolable, and Ben tries to stay with him when he can. He doesn’t know if his presence _helps_ truly, but it gives Chewie something else to think on, something else to focus on. Leia hurls herself into work with single-minded focus. There is no extra harshness in her decisions now made through grief, there is almost nothing different except a particular certainty that Ben knows his mother has always had.

He wonders, briefly, what would be happening now if he was still Kylo Ren, and realises that in that case _he_ would have killed Han.

He doesn’t want to think about what that would do to his mother.

They hold a remembrance ceremony on the third day after they get the news, candles after candles after candles set out to float across the lake. Chewie carves boats for some of them – for his, for Leia’s and Luke’s, for Ben and Finn and Rey’s and when, at the last minute, Uncle Lando arrives, one for him as well.

There is a kind of peace, watching candles like starlight under a starlit sky, floating away across the lake. Leia and Ben both pretend not to see each other’s tears.

 

* * *

 

 **xxii.**  
It is not quite a month later they capture Hux. One small trip away from the _Finalizer_ , to pacify a single settlement on a single moon – not big enough to bother bombing from orbit – and instead is met by more resistance than the First Order had expected.

A large contingent of Resistance, to be precise.

Some of the Stormtroopers defect – not that it’s surprising, with Finn’s story spread through the stars – but some stay. Hux is captured and it was not at all peaceful, Ben can see that as he’s hauled off a small transport vessel with a black eye and a split lip. Ben can’t help but watch, stunned and surprised. Somehow Hux is still immaculate, apart from bruise and lip. Still precise as ever, and it makes something in Ben’s heart ache all over again.

 _You shouldn’t_ , he reminds himself. _He doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t **care**._

It doesn’t stop him caring.

 

* * *

 

 **xxiii.**  
He sees Hux in his cell but he’s not allowed in. He doesn’t expect to be allowed in – he’s not told anyone of he and Hux, not even Luke or his mother – and he isn’t and he doesn’t ask. He watches, instead, as analysts and interrogators go in, try to get information out of Hux, and knows they won’t succeed. Hux is loyal to the First Order beyond all sense, beyond all reason, a loyalty hammered into him long before Snoke had even considered reaching out and warping his own mind.

Hux sits in the corner, sits on his bed, legs crossed or legs stretched out before him, neat as ever, even though they took his uniform lest it carry a tracker and locked it away in deep storage. He’s in plain grey robes instead, pale grey against pale skin and pale eyes and it’s quite striking, almost ghost like. Ben’s never seen a Force ghost, only heard tales of them, but he thinks Hux might almost be one, so pale and barely there, even his veins visible as soft blue lines beneath white skin.

 

* * *

 

 **xxiv.**  
“You dwell too much,” Rey says one day, collecting him for training. He’d been sat outside Hux’s cell again, and he’s not entirely certain how she found him there but supposes the Force made it easier all the same. It’s probably true what she says, though it’s not as though she herself isn’t also prone to holding onto things longer than sense dictates.

“Maybe,” he admits. “But I have a lot to make amends for, it’s better that I’m aware of it all.”

Rey purses her lips slightly as they climb the incline to the clearing they train in. There’s no temple here so they make do with a peaceful spot, not too far from base but not so near it’s distracting.

“Stop dwelling,” Rey suggests. “Do something instead.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxv.**  
He’s always allowed into his mother’s office, and he always takes care to knock. Leia nods him in, sets down the flimsy she was examining, switches off the holo, and gestures to the seat before her desk. It’s not a particularly comfortable seat but Ben doesn’t particularly want to make the request standing.

“General Hux,” he says. “Has he spoken to anyone?”

Leia shakes her head. “Only to request food or water or reading material, all in reasonable amounts. No information, nothing.”

Ben takes a breath, a deep breath. “He knows me, with my mask and without. I used to help with interrogation on the _Finalizer_ -” Leia nods and Ben assumes Poe or Rey told her. “If I were to talk to him he might listen. Might consider what I could do to him and talk.”

Leia looks considering, but Ben knows she will always look a gift bantha in the mouth and make sure there isn’t a trap hidden inside.

“Why?” she asks, and then, “Are you sure it won’t hurt you, or set you back?”

Ben shrugs. “I’ll talk to Uncle Luke,” he promises, “But I’d like to help.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxvi.**  
He doesn’t explain it all to Luke – it’s too much, and now he’s had time to consider it all he’s ashamed of almost all of it, of wanting the Dark that badly, of how it eventually returned him to the Light because he was incapable of making that simple choice himself – but he explains most of it. He tells Luke that he cares about Hux, that, even after all he’s done, he doesn’t want him to die or be locked up forever.

Luke smiles. “You remember what I told you about Vader?” he asks and Ben nods. “Love can be a powerful thing, even one-sided. Remember that.” He looks consideringly at Ben, glances towards where the cells are. “Remember though,” he says. “You don’t _have_ to talk to him. Don’t hurt yourself.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxvii.**  
The cells are built deep into the stone. They are built around neat corridors and have patrolling guards through and guards at the entrance to keep personnel numbers low when they can be used elsewhere. The doors are auto-locking and respond to biometrics and typed in codes. Ben spends several minutes with a datapad practising typing the access code with only the Force.

If it comes right down to it, he supposes, he could use the Force to open the door, but that might break it and then Hux could escape. No matter what he personally feels, he does not think the Resistance would be especially forgiving if he let Hux escape, let alone helped in some manner.

For a while, before entering, he watches, watches and nothing more. He’s pretty sure Hux has been informed he’ll be visiting – whether they used his old name or his birth name he doesn’t know – but he doesn’t think Hux is going to react well in either case. He could try to shock him, surprise him but probably the most shocking thing he could say to him had already been said, long ago on the _Finalizer_.

He keeps his lightsabre with him – Hux doesn’t know how to use it and it would be an extra marker that he is indeed the same man he was even if he also wasn’t – and watches the door. He doesn’t want to step in. That opens the door to so much hurt and pain and possibilities he isn’t prepared for. He doesn’t want to wait outside forever, lost in suspense and painful anticipation of what is sure to be a poor meeting.

He takes a breath and steps through the doorway.

 

* * *

 

 **xxviii.**  
Hux looks up and sees him and looks disbelieving. Maybe, Ben thinks, he’d thought him dead after Starkiller base had blown up, maybe he’d assumed he’d gone back to Snoke. He didn’t think Hux would ever have believed he’d return to the Resistance.

“They told me,” Hux says, words as precise and polished as ever. “That today’s visitor was the General’s son.”

“Yes,” Ben says simply.

“I knew you were a traitor to them,” Hux says. “I suppose I should have expected you to betray the Order too.”

There isn’t really much for Ben to say to that and there is silence. Hux says nothing, seeming to fall back into the ritual of silence to avoid giving away any secrets, and there isn’t really anything for him to say. Hux looks… not terrible, but not as precise as he usually does. His hair is a mess, and he’s growing a scrubby beard now he doesn’t have the means to shave. He still looks the same though, at the core. Pale eyes and pale skin and precision in every movement. Ben holds his memories hostage from himself, refuses to let his mind drift back that far.

“You could talk to us,” he says instead.

Hux huffs a breath dismissively. “And be a traitor?”

“You’re already going to lose. You can still join us.”

Hux looks him in the eyes, piercing pale eyes, repeats his words. “And be a traitor?”

Ben lets his mind stretch out, feels his way through the Force to touch Hux’s mind. Still in neat regiments, complete and total order, not a thought out of place, not a thought the First Order hasn’t given him. He could, if he wanted, slip in a counter-thought, one to unravel this training, but he can’t, not as a Jedi. Hux hasn’t asked for that, Hux doesn’t want that, even if the only reason he doesn’t is because of that selfsame training. He could try to disrupt the order but he thinks Hux would be even less likely to forgive him for breaking his control than for his betrayal. His mind is there, all of it, as precise and practical as it ever was, telling him that _of course the First Order_ will win, that _of course they will rescue such as useful asset_.

Ben knows they won’t. Better than most he knows Snoke’s cruelty, and it hurts to see Hux still believe this, his own naivety, shaped and made by the First Order, just as Kylo Ren had been crafted out of Ben Organa-Solo.

 

* * *

 

 **xxix.**  
“I love you,” is said, and it is barely a whisper. Hux doesn’t look up from where he’s sat in the corner of the cell. He knows this, knows this already from the two murmured words all that long while ago, whimpered to him on the _Finalizer_.

He knows Kylo Ren – or Ben Organa-Solo apparently – loves him. He thinks, as well, that he can grasp why, on a few levels.

He doesn’t understand why this should _matter_. They’re going to try him for war crimes. They’re going to kill him or lock him up forever and he doesn’t think even General Organa’s love for her son will stop her from wanting to kill the man who shot down the _Millennium Falcon_.

 

* * *

 

 **xxx.**  
“What is love worth?” Hux asks. Ben thinks his eyes are shut, though he can’t tell with Hux staring downwards. The room is silent, no new sounds reverberating off the stone or steel, and Hux’s question hovers in the air between them. Ben shrugs.

“It depends,” he says, and his voice is soft, softer than Hux has ever heard it. “It means a lot, to me. It means a lot to my mother, meant a lot to my father. Love turned Darth Vader to the Dark Side and brought him back from it. It depends on you.” Ben thinks, tries to think how to get through to Hux, but he does not think anything will work. He is not the man Hux knew back on the _Finalizer_ or on Starkiller Base. He’s Ben Organa-Solo again, a Jedi of the New Order, in control of his thoughts and his emotions and his power, and aligned, oh so firmly, to the Light.

“I love you,” he says, and it is firmer now. “I really shouldn’t. You don’t care about me; all the things that I thought were care were simple practicality for you, and since I betrayed the First Order you think me less than shit on your shoe.” He sighs, continues. “But I do love you, and that, that alone, is why I am here and trying to get you to give us information on the Order before they decide whether to try you.” He shrugs again. “I’d rather you live, Hux, even hating me. I’d rather you had a chance to figure out what was done to your head as I’ve had time to figure out what was done to mine. I’d rather you had a chance to join us before we win and trials are made certain.”

He doesn’t have to say aloud what they both know. Hux will almost certainly die if he goes to trial.

In the corner Hux is still silent. Still hasn’t looked up. Ben knows that he isn’t going to look up, isn’t going to reply and it _hurts_ , it hurts to speak to the man he loves and knows he doesn’t care one whit in return. “Please,” he says, and there is a touch of a sob to it and Hux _does_ look up, for a mere moment before looking disgusted and disappointed and looking back down. He pulls a breath in, anchors himself as best he can, finds the Light his whole being sings around and _trusts_. “Snoke only influenced me since I was a child,” he says. “The First Order has had you your whole life.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxxi.**  
When Hux looks up again there is no one there. He didn’t hear the door hiss open or hiss closed, but he supposes it doesn’t matter. He has much to think on, much to consider. Kylo Ren – _Ben Organa-Solo_ he corrects himself – still loves him. That is something which can be used. The Resistance believes itself almost certain of victory, and that shrinks the timeframe he can operate on. Ren – _Organa-Solo_ he corrects himself – believes that love can be a redeeming thing, that it could make General Organa consider other than she might. He also, and Hux does not know what to make of this but still thinks it could be useful, does not expect to be loved back. Lastly, and Hux actually _considers_ this, knowing what he does about Stormtrooper training, he believes that Hux has been brainwashed.

 _Well,_ he thinks, and tilts his head back against the wall. _There is the beginnings of a plan here_.

 

* * *

 

 **xxxii.**  
“You don’t have to talk to him,” Luke had said, and Ben knows this to be both truth and a lie at once. He doesn’t have to talk to Hux, but if he doesn’t, who will? If he doesn’t Hux will die, and he can’t wish for that, no matter how many people Hux may have killed ( _had_ killed, the whole Hosnian system gone in a moment). He doesn’t know why he still loves Hux – he knows he shouldn’t by all rights – but he wants to help the man all the same. Maybe, he thinks, it is some buried hope that Hux might care back, but he is all too aware that will never happen.

He is nothing to Hux, and even less now he is part of the Resistance.

(He’s almost ashamed how quickly he runs to the cells when he’s told Hux is willing to speak to him.)

 

* * *

 

 **xxxiii.**  
Hux is at the small table – bolted to the floor – sat on the chair watching the door. Ben watches before stepping in, watches to try to get a sense of him but Hux is as inscrutable as ever. Precision locking down everything. He sends the Force skimming over Hux’s mind, sees the perfect, unruffled regiments the same as ever and doubts, very much, that Hux is going to tell him anything useful.

He steps into the cell, hand resting lightly on his lightsabre still on his belt. He has no intention of using it, and still further no intention of letting Hux take it, but there is a reassurance to its presence, and letting Hux know it’s there is probably the closest he can get to a tacit threat that Hux might consider, given he hasn’t gone tearing into his mind just yet.

Hux looks contemplative, when Ben finally sits, and the silence isn’t weighted as it was the last time Ben visited. It’s a gentle quiet, simple and unthreatening and full of potential. Ben is glad he’d waited outside the doors – his cheeks were likely flushed after running down and by now they certainly should not be. He almost misses his mask for that, the benefit of hiding his face, but that’s not something Jedi are supposed to do.

“They told me you wanted to speak to me?” he says, and tries not to sound too hopeful.

He’s always been terrible at hiding his emotions. He knows that when he looks out at the lake his face looks as sad as he feels. He knows that after his nightmares he always looks terrible and that after the _other_ dreams he’s a mess until he’s had a wash.

He’s pretty sure it was obvious to Hux just how hopeful he was, even with Jedi self-control.

“I’ve been considering what you said,” Hux says, and actually sounds as though he _has_. Ben stretches out the Force, feels _honesty_ and lets himself start to relax. “I’ve considered it,” Hux says, “And certainly it’s true, I’ve was raised by the First Order, to be loyal to the First Order. My father expected it of me, taught me to be and trained me to be the same, much as I suspect Snoke did to you.”

The _honesty_ is still singing out and Ben nods, gently encouraging. Hux had never been open – that had been part of the fun in trying to tease out reactions so long ago, that path which had led him back to the Light. He hoped, oh how he _hoped_ that it might bring Hux to it too. Hux talks on and it registers in some part of Ben’s mind but he is not listening terribly much. He knows his mother is listening on the small comm tucked inside his belt, just in case Hux says anything truly useful. Ben focusses on the Force around them, the singing _honesty_ , the soft dance of _certainty_ , the precise movements of other emotions, all the same vague slight things that had moved around Hux’s mind back on the _Finalizer_ , on Starkiller. Hux keeps talking. Ben keeps listening. At some point Hux takes Ben’s hand, where it rests on the table as though to anchor his attention, knuckles pale against the dark plastic.

At some point something slips out, some odd thought not quite affection but similar to the practical care Hux had periodically offered on the _Finalizer_. Ben feels it, welcomes it, wraps it close within his mind, warm and loving and grateful. In his hand Hux’s is warm.

And then he feels the singing _honesty_ around Hux turn into slippery _deception_ and it is all he can do to not react.

 

* * *

 

 **xxxiv.**  
“I love you,” he says, and kisses Hux, one hand tangled in his now-long hair. It is a fierce kiss, their teeth clacking together, breaths hot against their skin, and Hux is only-half kissing back, almost surprised, but responding all the same. Maybe, Ben thinks, he believes this will make him believe him more. Maybe he thinks that this kiss, this warm-burning fierce kiss, like what they had once had and not at the same time, would make Ben do something foolish for love. “I love you,” he says again, breathed against Hux’s teeth where they are pressed into his lip.

 _I will always love you_ , Ben thinks. _I can’t seem to stop and it is stupid, **stupid**._

He pulls back all the same, steps backwards until he’s at the door. “Until you can return that,” he says, shaking his head, “Don’t lie to me.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxxv.**  
The door opens, the door closes and Ben sinks the ground opposite the door, back pressed against the hard stone wall. _I hate him_ , he thinks and _I love him_ too, both mingled together. He’s angry, so angry, that Hux would dare to lie to him, would dare to try to trick him, would dare to show false affection to make him believe it, and he hates himself for wanting so much to believe it, hates the Force for making sure he knew it for the lie it was. He loves, still, **_still_** , and hates himself even more for that.

He’s sobbing, his face half pressed against the cold stone, and he draws his legs up, lifts one shoulder to try to hide his face, tries to make himself small and insignificant so no one will find him as he tries to get himself under control. He feels like a child again, feels like he did under Snoke’s tutelage, a child with power and knowledge and a far too dangerous weapon, emotions running wild and keeping him manageable.

 _I hate him_ , he thinks and then, _I love him_ , and he is aching with it, with the desire to hurt and the desire to help, and he can feel the tears on his cheeks, feel his nails digging into his arms, feel Uncle Luke’s hands gentle on his shoulders.

“It’s alright,” he says, tugging Ben to him, letting him hide his face against rough-spun robes. It must be hurting him, Ben thinks, to be down here in the cold, with his joints, and to comfort _him_ , he who slaughtered the other padawans, and he hates himself yet more as Luke’s prosthetic hand smoothes gently down his back. “Hate and love,” Luke says, and he can hear the wry smile Luke is giving. “They are the two greatest dangers to any Jedi.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxxvi.**  
Ben feels the change in the Force when Rey kills Snoke. They don’t get along, probably never will, because although Rey isn’t much inclined to hold a grudge Ben hasn’t found it easy to forgive himself for what he did and she can’t stand his lingering over it (“What’s done is _done_ ,” she’d said. “You just have to continue on.”). There is a ripple in the Force, when Rey kills Snoke, and for a moment Ben is tugged away, watching through Rey’s eyes as she draws her lightsabre from Snoke’s chest, the man small in death the way his holos never were.

They’ve won, and it feels simpler than it ought.

 

* * *

 

 **xxxvii.**  
His mother meets him, when they arrive back. Rey goes with Finn to wait for Poe beside the X-wing landing zone, Luke seems to nod and head inside, as though he already knows what she’s going to say. Ben waits, hand light on his ‘sabre (red _still_ , because they hadn’t had time to search out new crystals) and waits for her to speak.

Her voice is soft when she does. “We’ve won,” she says. “There is still clean up to do, but we _have_ won.” Her eyes are dark and gentle, the way they had been after childhood nightmares, warm and comforting in a way only hers ever were. “We’re going to have to hold trials,” she says, and Ben hates himself for not seeing this coming.

 _Hux,_ he thinks. Leia’s hand is gentle on his, an anchor point holding him in place, holding him _present_.

“He hasn’t recanted,” she says. “He hasn’t offered anything. He would only talk to you, and then barely.”

“I…,” Ben starts. “Can I-”

His mother nods. “Go on,” she says, and he dips his head so she can kiss his brow as she always does. “I’ll take care of things.”

 

* * *

 

 **xxxviii.**  
Ben looks at the door to Hux’s cell. He considers what it would look like if he was still Kylo Ren, and concluded he would probably be dead and unable to see it at this point. He wonders what he would _do_ if he was still Kylo Ren, and knows, ultimately, that he would do nothing. He never tried to mend what had been when he had still been Kylo Ren, and now he was Ben Organa-Solo again and not someone Hux would care to talk to anyway.

He sets his lightsabre down outside the cell, and steps in.

 

* * *

 

 **xxxix.**  
Hux is reading when Ben steps in. He’s imprisoned quite thoroughly, has made no attempts to escape since his first few weeks so he’s been allowed small reports, as neutrally-voiced as possible, to let him know what is going on outside. He is reading last week’s when Ben steps in, with soot from blaster-burns on his robes and a wary look in his eye.

He doesn’t say anything.

Usually, when Ben steps in, he has something to say even if it is only _please_ and some reasoning for him to betray the First Order. He’s never stood silently like this, not uncertain yet almost wary. He seems tense but is not fidgeting at all. He’s still, almost dangerously so, and Hux huffs out a disappointed breath and looks back to the report.

“Snoke is dead.”

Hux’s head rockets back up. “ _What_.”

“Rey killed him. She shared her sight of it with me and with Uncle Luke. Snoke is dead.”

 

* * *

 

 **xl.**  
Hux is silent, mouth slightly agape, the report flimsy ignored in his hand. He looks shocked and surprisingly _young_ , and Ben supposes that in a way he is, brought up as he was to believe so wholly in the First Order.

Like when Ben was Kylo, Hux hadn’t been allowed opinions that weren’t carefully spoon-fed to him by Snoke.

Ben wonders if he’s going to have to spell it out to Hux, tell him what his mother had said, to finally lay down some kind of condemnation. Hux isn’t blinking, is just _staring_ , eyes fixed on him, still looking stunned.

Then he blinks. “Oh.”

“Your father,” Ben says, “Brendol Hux? He was killed too, when we destroyed the base. Most of the major officers were. There’s no one to start up the Order again.”

 

* * *

 

 **xli.**  
Piece by piece by piece Hux’s world is shredded away by Ben Organa-Solo’s gentle voice. It’s _so_ gentle, so soft, it is nothing like Kylo Ren at all and Hux realises that maybe he had not been warped as Ben seems to think he had been, but certainly Kylo had been cut off different cloth than Ben. They were distinct entities in Hux’s mind now; dark robed Kylo Ren, brown robed Ben. Lashing anger and gentle calm. Hatred-frustration-anger and uncertainty-wariness-confusion.

Hux’s breathing was ragged, when Ben had finished telling him what had happened.

The First Order was gone. The First Order – all its great might – had failed.

He was going to die. They were going to put him on trial before all the worlds he had harmed and he was going to die.

 

* * *

 

 **xlii.** **  
** “I’m sorry,” Ben says, and Hux seems surprised to hear it. “I can’t help you now,” he says, and he can feel tears beading in his eyes. _I want to help_ , he thinks. _Oh, do I want to help_.

He sees Hux’s eyes dart to the spot on his belt that usually holds his lightsabre and is glad he left it outside.

“I won’t kill you,” he says. “I love you, but I won’t help you end your life.”

Hux looks almost assessing, glancing over Ben and the rest of the room.

“So instead,” Hux says, “You’ll let me suffer through a trial and whatever punishment they devise?”

Ben feels a tear come loose, the cold touch of it down his cheek. “I asked you to help us. I tried to tell you.” He blinks, feels more tears begin their path down his face. “You chose this.” His voice is small, and he _feels_ small to admit it. “I love you,” he says, “But you make your own choices.”

 

* * *

 

 **xliii.  
** Hux rises from the bed, the springs creaking. His strides are quick and certain, as though he was on the bridge of the _Finalizer_ again, that same absolute surety of purpose. He doesn’t want to die. Ben won’t help him die. Therefore he _can’t_ die, with those options taken away. He must live, rather than leave the remnants of the First Order with no one to turn to. He has to live, no matter what sentence the victorious Resistance might pass on him.

He kisses Ben, pitiful as he is with the tears trickling down his face, and feels Ben respond. It is almost a violent kiss, like the ones they had shared on the _Finalizer_ , but almost not. It’s toned down from the violence of hatred, carefully changed gentler, designed to make Ben think that _maybe-_

 

* * *

 

 **xliv.** **  
** “No,” Ben says, and steps backwards. “You don’t care for me, and even if you did, I can’t help you.” Hux is looking at him, hair grown long, beard scruffy, pale eyes and pale skin, wan in the bleak light of the cell. Ben’s heart is aching, Ben’s heart is _breaking_ and he wants, desperately, to help in some way.

But he can’t. He can’t.

Hux is watching him, nothing but disgust in the set of his face, the expression of his eyes. “You’re _pitiful_ ,” he says and it’s almost spat out. “I hope my death hurts you.”

Ben takes one more step backwards, slips out of the door, and sinks to the floor against the wall opposite the cell.

It’s easier to cry this time.

 

* * *

 

 **xlv.** **  
** “So,” one of the assembled delegates says. “It is decided. For his crimes in this war, most namely the destruction of the Hosnian system, General Hux will be killed in the same manner he killed so many, albeit scaled down. Death by immolation.”

The room is in an uproar, and Ben’s scream leads it. “You can’t!” he cries, and he knows his mother is standing beside him. “That’s _inhumane_!”

“So is what he did!” someone else cries, and then someone else responds, and Ben feels his mother’s hand slip into his.

He waits for a pause in the shouting, a moment slightly quiet: “I thought we were supposed to be _better!”_ he yells, and for a moment there is pause. “You’re being worse than even they were.”

“Said from experience,” points out another delegate. “Maybe we should put you on trial too?”

Emotions swirling, Force lashing, Ben can feel the emotions of everyone around him, even his mother’s perfect calm, but overriding it all is a litany, a simple chant of **_nononononononono_**.

“My son,” Leia says, “Has a point.” Her voice is even and for all she is shorter than he she seems taller, Force giving her presence, lungs giving her voice and everyone falls silent as she scans the room. “We were supposed to be better than the First Order. A new Republic, not given to the barbarism of the Empire or the First Order. A new world, understanding and considering and not so violent. Without the First Order General Hux is _nothing_. He has hurt us all, yes, but he is nothing now.

“We are,” she repeats, “Supposed to be better than this.” She glances around at the gathered delegates. “I will not go against your verdict. We agreed that the prisoners would all be tried _fairly_ , with as little bias as possible. We agreed that what decisions the courts came to would be upheld. But I would beg you all, in the name of all we are supposed to be, to reconsider.”

 

* * *

 

 **xlvi.**  
The day of Hux’s execution Ben rises, dresses, eats. He meets his mother in front of the X-wing landing area where they meet Chewie. Rey and Finn and Poe refuse to be there. Luke will be sitting somewhere else. Ben takes his mother’s hand as they walk to the stands.

“You don’t have to be here,” Leia says, voice so soft no one else can hear.

“I do,” Ben says, and it is sad certainty.

“It’s barbaric,” Leia says and Ben nods.

“So is what he did.”

Leia stops and Ben, in turn, halts. “You don’t have to be here,” she repeats. He is about to interject and she raises a hand. “You don’t have to be here. Not even out of duty. You don’t have to condemn him for Han’s death, you don’t have to reject the First Order any more than you already have.” Her eyes are dark and soft and certain and sad, and Ben feels lead settle in his throat. “You don’t have to be here.”

“I do,” Ben says. “I can’t let him die alone.”

 

* * *

 

 **xlvii.**  
Hux is allowed time to prepare for his execution. They’d told him when they’d come to the decision, and he’d asked the guards, sent a message to General Organa. His hair was trimmed, back to how it was. He was given a shave.

The day of his execution he dresses in his old uniform, carefully pressed, without wrinkles. He neatens his hair, stands tall.

He doesn’t flinch as the guards lead him outside.

 

* * *

 

 **xlviii.**  
Ben and Leia are at the front seats. Chewie is sat on Leia’s other side, firm and tall and certain. Ben had asked him, the day before, why he was going to be there and Chewie had told him, quite plainly, that he still owed a debt to Han. This, he had said, was one of a few ways left to repay it. Ben is still holding his mother’s hand as Hux is lead out.

He’s in his old uniform, beard shaved off and his hair trimmed back, and he looks almost like he did back on the _Finalizer_. Smart. Precise. Ordered.

As he’s led towards the stake that is to be his pyre his eyes meet Ben’s.

There’s nothing in them. Pale eyes against pale skin, watching. There’s no blame. There’s no anger. There’s nothing at all, fixed watching Ben. He doesn’t break his gaze as they tie his arms back, as they tie his legs to the stake, as they pour oil onto him and onto the wood they’ve built around him. Hux doesn’t flinch, doesn’t break his gaze.

Ben doesn’t blink.

The torch is brought near to the stacks of wood, bright crackling fire, touched down to ignite the oil-soaked kindling. They’d asked Ben at first, despite his objections, to use his lightsabre, a symbol of what was destroying what was.

He’d refused. He was not going to kill Hux.

The flames leap and catch and lick around the timber hungrily, chasing the oil over and around and licking around the legs of Hux. Hux doesn’t flinch. Hux doesn’t blink. Hux watches Ben with an empty gaze. Ben’s hand is tight on his mother’s, Leia’s hand firm in turn. He’d almost fear he was hurting her except she was holding his hand back with equal force. He can feel Chewie watching, still and silent.

Hux doesn’t scream. He doesn’t whimper. There is nothing, nothing in his gaze, nothing in his posture, nothing he says or does, there is _nothing_. Ben stretches out his mind, the Force around him tense and coiled and he doesn’t dare let it out more than this. He would do something stupid if he did, and maybe that is why Uncle Luke went to go and sit somewhere else, to be unexpected if he does, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t _care_. He touches Hux’s mind as gently as he dares.

His mind is as regimented as ever. Somewhere he can sense the pain he must be feeling, flickering light and screaming from some far off region of his mind, but the overall consciousness is ignoring it.

Hux isn’t blinking.

Ben doesn’t know why he is doing this, cannot find it. Is this meant to be a punishment for refusing to kill him? Is this blame for betraying the Order? Is this some final acknowledgement?

He hears the screams of Hux’s mind draw nearer as the flames lick their way up, burn through Hux’s uniform piece by piece, burn his skin, his muscles, tense his tendons to spasming. His heart is aching, his heart is _breaking_ and he stretches out the thought, presses it lightly to Hux’s mind. Pain and aching and _love,_ love singing out like starlight, delicate and bright and certain and soft. He doesn’t know why he is doing this. It isn’t going to be returned – can’t be returned now, with Hux’s death mere minutes away – but he _has_ to, has to do something. He’s torn minds apart before, shattered them, broken them, found their deepest secrets, but never done this, impressed upon one that they are loved in all their horror, through all their hatred.

He presses the thought in as Hux finally blinks at all the smoke, as his jaw tightens further to hold in the screams that fill his mind. _I love you_ he sends. Hux doesn’t respond. Ben doesn’t think he’s even fully aware of it. He sends the thought again, and again, firmer and warmer and brighter and softer all at once, tries to fill Hux’s mind with it, to let him know he is not alone, to give him the satisfaction of hurting him in some way, he doesn’t know, he only knows that he has to.

He presses the thought into Hux’s mind as the General whimpers and finally lets out a scream, the flames licking and wrapping around him. The oil they’d used, whatever it was, hadn’t produced smoke enough to suffocate. The wood was dried and some variety that smoked little too.

They had wanted Hux to suffer and now he was.

 _I love you_ , Ben sends, pressing into Hux’s mind, disordering the regiments of it all. _I love you_.

He watches Hux, holds his gaze, unblinking, until all the life leaves the General’s mind.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just some general notes:  
> \- Probably not all of this is entirely canon, I'm pretty sure I put shower in there when I think in Star Wars they're called refreshers? And I've used the word flimsy in place of a paper report. If you know the best replacement terms for these feel free to tell me, I'm not hugely up on Star Wars canon.  
> \- Most of what Ben does in this is not at all emotionally healthy. Not that Kylo/Ben is a particularly emotionally stable or healthy individual, but I can say from experience that pining like he does in this is _really not good for you_. Please do not take this fic as an endorsement of such behaviours.  
>  \- It may cheer some of you to know that I thought of one - precisely one - way in which Hux would leave the Order with Kylo/Ben and they would have been happy space gays. Unfortunately, I wanted to torture my characters. As requested by **oneorangeshoelace** the nice version of this fic is now up, feel free to click on to read it.  
>  \- _I did not mean for this to get so out of control_. I almost never write oneshots more than 3k, I did not expect this to get so lengthy, and if this reads differently from my other stuff the length is probably why. I wrote this in patches and wrote ahead for some parts meaning I had to go back and link stuff back up and make sure it all made sense. If you notice an inconsistency feel free to tell me and I will fix it.  
>  \- Comments, of any kind, are much appreciated.


End file.
